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I spoke with one of Harry Reid's staff members and was told that Reid is pushing hard to get the unemployment extension voted on by Friday.

If you say so, I'm not holding my breath but on this one I think Congress is working on their Christmas party dinner invitations..and not too concerned with a lifeline that will be cut for millions come 1/1/12. Do I think some people are milking unemployment, absolutely. Do I think it is rampant, nope...I can tell you I have been looking hard for a job, applying everywhere, mostly no response.

My gut tells me another extension will be made...announcement of it by Friday?

It's a bit silly to discuss the prospects for a UE extension in a vacuum. It's a minor piece of another full scale budgetary train wreck involving everything from a govt shutdown to the payroll tax, doc fix, AMT relief, even the Keystone Pipeline. The House bill with limited UE extensions should pass, but Reid won't allow a Senate vote on it. Reid may introduce his own bill but it won't be anything that will pass cloture. My guess is that his bill won't even be paid for, since he adamantly opposes paying for UE. If so, he won't even get all the dems' votes much less any of the 7 repubs he needs...

In regards to the UI deadline...my guess is that a temporary extension will be passed next week that will extend the current deadline to maybe March or April -- then once both sides return from the holidays they will start working on unemployment reform.

LynnHarris, is this based on information you've gathered or is it only speculation on your part? Has such a postponement ever happened before?

I'm just wondering if you could elaborate because some people reading your post might get their hopes up unnecessarily. Thanks.

If I'm not mistaken, I think both the house and senate made about two to three temporary extensions back in 2010 (February through March) before they could reach a final agreement. Each one of the extensions was for about thirty days -- and it almost drove the unemployment offices crazy because they had to keep re-programming their system every thirty days to process each temporary extension.

However, regarding my above statement I said that this was my "guess" as to what may happen next week..

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